You Asked: Posting Comments

There's a renovated warehouse in Minneapolis called Butler Square which contains shops, offices and restaurants. Off a large atrium in the center of the building there used to be a men’s room with a one-way mirror. While standing at a urinal you could look into the atrium. If you were in the atrium trying to look into the bathroom, you just saw your reflection. I never got used to this bathroom. It always made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

I’ve had a little of the same feeling regarding the inability of folks to post comments to this blog. I keep laying posts out there, but what I get in return is constrained. It’s largely a one-way communication.

Not for long. Starting in November, folks will be able to post comments directly to this blog for everyone to see. When I last addressed this issue on August 9 there were a number of concerns that had to be worked out including security and financial questions. Our talented web staff here at EPA sought out the folks at Health and Human Services who handle Secretary Leavitt’s blog and the result is EPA will be using a simple and inexpensive system that has proven it can handle posts to a federal site.

Federal decisionmakers are getting better at blogging. I’m happy, for instance, to see that Secretary Chertoff at the Department of Homeland Security and Sean McCormack at the State Department have started blogs. I expect, and hope, we’ll see a geometric increase in government leaders using this tool to communicate. It’s time consuming and has an element of risk, but blogging is an increase in government transparency more of us should see through.

Comments

[Moldova]

I think that providing the ability to comment to all visitations of this blog will have a positive impact on it because the reader will have the possibility to see more points of view on a topic.